In daily life, we often see that many kindergarten children or students in the first and second grades of elementary school often imitate the teacher’s tone or behavior to manage and direct their peers when playing games; in class management in schools, teachers also often say, “What kind of class teacher will bring out the kind of students”, making fun of the role of the class teacher in guiding students in his class.

Teachers’ expectations, attitudes towards things, personal behaviors, and personality qualities will have an invisible impact on students. Among them, teachers’ “expectations” for students have an important impact on students’ academic performance.

why? Let’s start with a psychological experiment.

Interesting “Rosenthal Effect”

Rosenthal and Jacobson were two American psychologists. They came to an elementary school in 1968 and conducted an intelligence test on elementary school students at the beginning of the school year. They told the school teachers that this test could predict the students’ performance. Then randomly select some students and tell the teacher the list, saying that these students have development potential. This test cannot predict students’ intellectual development potential, and the students selected are random and have nothing to do with test scores, and the teachers do not know these students.

Subsequently, the teacher conducted normal teaching, while two psychologists retested the students one semester, one year later, and two years later. In the first two tests, the teacher of the student’s class had a list of students provided by them; in the last test, the student was placed in a new class, and the teacher of this class did not have a list of students provided by them. After some time, significant differences in intelligence emerged between the students designated as having potential and the control group of students (who were not designated as having potential), with the students designated as having the potential to perform the best academically.

Rosenthal and Jacobson believe that teacher expectations are a self-fulfilling prophecy and that students are invisibly affected by such expectations because their academic performance ultimately reflects this expectation.

Rosenthal and others called the phenomenon discovered in this experiment the Rosenthal effect, also known as the teacher expectation effect, which means that when people form expectations or predictions about a certain situation, they will adapt to the situation. It includes the self-fulfillment effect and the maintenance expectancy effect.

Be a very “Rosenthal” teacher

In school teaching life, if teachers form positive expectations based on their understanding of students, then students’ academic performance and behavioral performance will be subtly affected by this expectation, and changes in line with this expectation will occur.

You must trust the students.

• If a student’s father is a famous mathematician, the teacher will tend to think that he has certain potential in mathematics. Even if the student’s mathematics ability is average, if the teacher has high expectations for him and shows his development in mathematics Give him full confidence, encourage him to practice regularly, and correct his homework extra. As a result, one day in the future, this student will become an excellent mathematician. Otherwise, the result is just the opposite. This is the self-fulfilling effect of the Rosenthal effect. Even if it is a wrong expectation, as long as the students are given enough trust and confidence, this wrong expectation will become a reality.
• This inspires us to believe in every student and give them full confidence in the school’s teaching practice.
• In a class, each student has a different learning status, uneven academic performance, and preferences for each subject. As a teacher, based on understanding each student, he should have a heart of trust. I believe that they can learn knowledge in various subjects and improve their grades through their efforts; I believe that under the correct guidance, they can manage themselves well, correct their behavior, and distinguish between good and evil; and I believe that they all have their potential and advantages. As long as you are good at discovery, you will release your light and heat.
• Students are growing trees. Even if the trunk is broken, we must believe that they still have branches; if the branches are broken, we must believe that they still have leaves; if the leaves are broken, we must believe that they still have roots. If they are all broken, we also have to believe that he is still a living being!
• German educator Spranger said: “Parents and teachers should not always exhort, check, supervise, and review them. Once children gain more trust and expectations, their inner motivation will be stimulated and they will become smarter, more capable, and more capable.” Comprehension.”
• Giving students full trust in anticipation is a silent awakening and an invisible education.

Don’t give up on students.

• In daily teaching in schools, we often encounter such teachers. After the test results came out, they found that some students with “poor” learning abilities had higher scores, and they took it for granted that these students must have cheated on the test, otherwise they would not have achieved such results. But in fact, some students did achieve such results through their efforts, not what the teacher thought.
• The problem lies with teachers. They look at students in a fixed way and believe that students will maintain their previous development model. They recognize this model and find it difficult to pay attention to the development of students’ potential abilities. Therefore, they have different expectations for poor students and excellent students, and it is difficult to pay attention to the progress of poor students and even be skeptical of them. This is the Rosenthal effect. maintenance expectancy effect.
• It inspires teachers from the opposite side to treat every student equally in teaching and never give up on their in attitude.
• Teachers are the second parents of students. They care for them, do not belittle or give up, teach students by their aptitude, and psychologically expect them to do well through their efforts. This will affect the students to a large extent and make them psychologically healthy. Be nourished and move towards something better.
• this is a true story.
• There was a child who was naughty and active, often got into trouble at school, and had poor academic performance. Even the teacher said to his mother: “This child will not develop much in the future.” However, his mother never gave up on her son. Believe in him firmly, encourage him frequently, and praise him in times when he has made some progress. Under the mother’s unyielding expectations, constant praise, constant encouragement, and confidence, the child, through his efforts, this so-called poor student, finally entered college with excellent results.
• The mother shed tears on the day she sent her son to college. She said that no matter what, she never gave up on her son.
• Treating every student equally in expectations and not giving up on each student is a kind of warmth and love that will nourish the students’ hearts.

Give full play to the “external factors” role of teachers to stimulate students’ interest in learning.

• Students achieve good results in exams, on the one hand, through their efforts, and on the other hand, due to the teacher’s teaching and guidance. The former is the internal cause of students’ progress, while the latter is the external cause. As a teacher, he cannot determine the internal factors of students, but he can maximize the role of his external factors and use various methods to mobilize students’ enthusiasm for learning.
• Every day, teachers walk into the classroom with high expectations, hoping that they will give a wonderful lecture and that students will listen carefully. They hope that they can understand new knowledge, interact well with the teacher, and have a successful class. Teachers are the “external factors” for students to learn new knowledge and work hard. They should be good at observing students’ learning status, be able to adjust their teaching design at any time, and change teaching methods and means promptly, such as using games and competitions to mobilize the classroom. Atmosphere, stimulate students’ interest in learning, use “external factors” to touch and influence “internal factors”, and make students change in the direction we expect.

Conclusion

To sum up, teachers’ expectations for students play a very important role in promoting the improvement of students’ academic performance and enabling them to grow up healthily both physically and mentally. Every excellent teacher attaches great importance to the psychological phenomenon of the “Rosenthal Effect” and can apply it well in teaching practice.